Sexy Girl Gets Raped by Mean Lesbians

Alaina was 18 in March of 2012, a higher freshman in the eye of bound break. She was visiting her friend at an Ivy League school for the weekend, bag packed with her favorite dress: a cotton rainbow halter that she had helped pattern.

The following night, Alaina's friend hosted a party in her dorm. Other freshmen arrived early to go prepare and put on makeup—"nerdy outcast" types, Alaina remembers of the tightknit group who were all acquainted with her host. Alcohol and Coca-Cola had been bought for mixing, just Alaina opted just for the Coke; she didn't feel like drinking that night.

The party sprawled into two other adjacent dorm rooms, and suddenly Alaina felt her vision begin to blur. By 10 p.chiliad., she'd lost the ability to speak coherently—her thoughts started to fade along with her control over her torso. By midnight, she remembers existence led into an empty dorm room down the hall. There, drugged and nearly unconscious, she was raped.

"I tried to repress it," she says of the memory that plagued her when she went home the adjacent day. "I pretended information technology was a bad dream."

For five months, she didn't tell anyone about the assault, trying to focus on getting through her classes despite recurring nightmares. Just after rumors started to circulate near what had happened that dark—and afterward, horrifyingly, a video surfaced that her attacker had taken as "proof" of their meet—Alaina had had enough. She found the number for campus security online, took a deep breath, and dialed.

Alaina explained to the officer who answered that she had been sexually assaulted past a electric current student—that she'd been drugged, high-strung, and penetrated by her assailant'due south fingers as she faded in and out of consciousness one night 5 months ago.

"The officeholder who spoke with me didn't even think to ask the gender of my assailant until I gave her the name," she remembers. "A girl'south name."

Sexual attack is perceived as a straight issue, perpetrated by men against women. Thanks in part to the battered women's movement of the 1980s and the growing sensation of the electric current rape civilization in the United States—from assaults on higher campuses to abuse inside relationships—we've been hearing a predominantly heterosexual story. Simply there'due south a scenario that, while less frequent, is no less damaging to the victims information technology claims: rape between women.

The outcome'southward lack of national attention means that data is slim, simply a 2005 survey by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) concluded that one in three lesbian-identified participants had been sexually assaulted past a woman, and one in four had experienced violence within a lesbian relationship. Viii years later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the first-ever national survey of intimate partner violence by sexual orientation and discovered that lesbians (and gay men) experience equalor college rates of partner violence than the direct-identified population.

Stephanie Trilling, manager of community awareness and prevention services at the Boston Area Rape Crisis (BARCC), observes that for her queer female clients who have been assaulted past women, the beginning hurdle is simply understanding the assault as rape. Since this scenario is rarely portrayed in the media or in educational programming, "it can be especially challenging to place their experience as violence," she says. "Many people have a hard fourth dimension assertive that a woman could be capable of inflicting violence on another person."

These gender norms tin can directly contribute to distrust of a victim's claims, says Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, co-writer of a recent report of LGBTQ intimate partner violence in Colorado. "When someone is confronted with a state of affairs that doesn't quite fit that major narrative, they may question its validity," she says. All of this amounts to a civilization in which most inquiry on partner violence focuses on heterosexual relationships. "So, in some ways, we're playing grab up."

Survivors are trapped in a cycle that delegitimizes their experience: first by downplaying the likelihood that it could happen at all, then by not validating information technology once information technology happens, and finally by non analyzing the data—and therefore creating awareness—later it does.

Woman-on-adult female assault doesn't just happen on college campuses or at the hands of strangers—merely like their direct counterparts, queer women often experience sexual assail within relationships. Not that they have the same protections. All states passed laws against marital rape by 1993 (with some exceptions per land), simply while some of the legal linguistic communication employs the gender-neutral "spouse" to explain assaults inside a matrimony, other states, similar Alabama and California, default to "wife" for victim and "hubby" for aggressor. The implication is that rape only occurs in heterosexual marriages or long-term partnerships—which is, of course, non the instance.

Sarah, 32, and her girlfriend had been dating long-distance for near a year—Sarah in California, her partner in N Carolina—when they decided they wanted to live together. Her partner was "very kind and very loving" earlier they moved in, Sarah says. But when later on they'd hauled the final box into Sarah's Oakland apartment, Sarah learned that her new alive-in girlfriend suffered from bipolar disorder, and had a terrible temper. She became increasingly enervating and physically ambitious when Sarah would disagree with her, peculiarly nigh money. The relationship started to feel similar a rollercoaster, with extreme highs and lows.

"At commencement, the sexual activity was skilful," says Sarah. "But she always wanted more than than what I could requite. One day she came dwelling house with a strap-on; if I loved her, she said, I would allow her to use it." Sarah wasn't interested. "It was simply something that I didn't like and didn't want," she says. She declined for months, her partner repeatedly pressuring her, until one night, Sarah's partner assaulted her with the strap-on. "Even though I was crying the whole time, she never stopped," Sarah recalls.

Sarah left their dwelling house that night and sabbatum crying in her motorcar. As a child, she had been repeatedly sexually abused by an uncle —this assail felt just as violating. But she still wasn't certain if she would call it rape. "Because we were together, I thought that she had the correct to have sex activity with me the way she wanted," Sarah explains.

For the next six months, Sarah's partner connected to rape her. She eventually mustered upwards the strength to get out the human relationship after her partner made a particularly controlling demand: that Sarah financially support her. When Sarah reasoned that she was unable to, her partner attempted to striking her. She fled the flat, her partner following her outside with a knife just every bit she collection away.

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For her freedom, Sarah paid dearly: She financed her partner's moving expenses back to N Carolina. "I had to take out a loan so that I could pay for her to relocate." She never reported the assaults, nor has she spoken to her now ex-partner since catastrophe their relationship.

Sarah is not an outlier. "Many of our clients in aforementioned-sex activity relationships are very hesitant to report at all," says Caitlin Kauffman, campus and community outreach coordinator for Bay Expanse Women Against Rape (BAWAR)—where Sarah somewhen sought counseling. The consequences of coming forward with sexual assault allegations are fraught for any sexual violence survivor. Only for queer women, who already typically live, date, and brand friends within a smaller network of other queer-identified women, the risks can be even more circuitous.

"Friend groups can go divided and the survivor may fear losing her only LGBTQ support network," Kauffman says. "This can be peculiarly challenging for survivors who live in areas where the customs is small or in that location is a more than hostile climate towards LGBTQ people."

There are larger, cultural implications of naming a aforementioned-sex attacker. Even as LGBTQ rights are on the ascent, "in that location's a fear that accusing someone of set on inside your community, which is already marginalized, will give guild cause to fear or marginalize you further," says Trilling. Queer women's historical legacy as "deviant" is not that far behind. In a climate where more and more than openly queer women are assuming public roles—and gaining acceptance in straight communities—naming one of your own isn't just interpreted equally a charge on them. It'southward an set on on your community'due south hard-won progress to be seen as equal.

And then, for women who might non be "out," shame well-nigh their sexual orientation or a fear of being outted significantly hinders their power to report. If you're closeted—or even semi-closeted—formally coming forward with sexual set on allegations could mean compromising your professional or familial relationships by revealing your orientation. (The guarantee of keeping your job as an LGBTQ American currently varies per land.) The downwardly economic screw of losing i'south task to written report a same-sexual activity rape that won't even be deemed legitimate is only not worth it—literally.

Weeks passed earlier Ella, 25, began to confide in her friends that she had been raped. While she didn't discover them to be exactly unsupportive, in that location was still a consistent and major hurdle: "They are oftentimes surprised when they realize it was a woman who assaulted me."

In 2015, Ella was on a luncheon date with a woman she had met at a restaurant about her Berkeley flat. After luncheon, they institute themselves very close to Ella'southward abode—and she invited her engagement upwardly. But after they had consensual sexual activity, Ella'southward date refused to leave.

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"I stayed up all night assuming she would get out in the morning," she remembers, all the same haunted. "She didn't. She didn't understand 'no' later that." Ella's engagement then sexually assaulted her, took a shower, and finally left for work back at the restaurant where they had met.

Ella never reported her set on either, and has since relied on herself and her friends—non the police—to keep her condom. She ignored repeated texts from her attacker insisting to "make it correct." And and so her attacker started showing up at her home unannounced.

"One time a friend was dropping me off after lunch, and she saw me earlier I saw her," she recalls. "I freaked out." Ella ran upwardly the stairs to her flat and locked herself in, all the while hearing her attacker telephone call out her name. Ella's friend who had driven her immediately called to let her know he would non be leaving until her rapist left the building. Eventually, she did.

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For women trying to escape a female aggressor, the procedure of calling the police, formally pressing charges, or seeking emergency shelter presents unique challenges. Domestic violence shelters typically focus on providing services to cisgender, heterosexual females and their children. "So where a heterosexual female would have picayune business about her male partner being allowed inside the facility, a female in a aforementioned-sex partnership may have valid concerns regarding the ability of her abuser to enter the facility and perpetrate against her," explains Langenderfer-Magruder.

The obstacles don't end in that location. Experts say that this reticence to involve the authorities tin can be traced back to a lack of understanding around LGBTQ bug broadly. Data from a 2015 National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs survey describes a " historically mistrustful relationship of the LGBTQ community and law enforcement," which has resulted in not merely having claims of violence dismissed, simply also victims being mistakenly arrested as perpetrators.

When female victims of female assaults practice pursue legal action, gender bias can severely hinder their power to accurately report sexual violence. "Often, women in abusive aforementioned-sex relationships tell the states that even when they do call the police, they are treated dismissively," recounts Kauffman. "'Women aren't violent.' 'This is only a girl fight, this is a waste of our time,' is a common attitude." According to the 2015 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, of LGBTQ individuals in Ohio who did written report intimate partner violence, 21 pct experienced "indifferent" reactions from police force. Another 28 percent experienced hostility.

When Alaina shared her rapist's proper noun with the campus police officer back in 2012, the tone of the conversation changed immediately. "She seemed like she was no longer taking my issue seriously, and asked me questions that I don't think were important to my example, similar my own sexuality."

Alaina told the officeholder that she identified equally bisexual and pushed for more details on pursuing legal action. "She told me that if I went through with the instance, it would exist an on-campus outcome and not much could be done because I wasn't even a educatee, and it was my word against hers in a trial, and there was no longer any evidence of the drugs she gave me in my arrangement." The officer asked Alaina to send her copies of online exchanges with her attacker, but never followed up about her written report. Alaina, now 24, never pressed charges and has had no communication with her attacker since 2012.

Merely there are exceptions to this widespread negligence. A now infamous case of queer rape brought national attention to the issue in 2005, when two immature women were charged with attack and sexual bombardment for raping a twenty-yr-one-time student at Smith College in Northampton, MA.

The assistant commune attorney on the instance, Susan J. Loehn, says the Northampton police performed a "thorough investigation" and treated the victim "in a sensitive manner." According to reports, the victim alleged that what started as a consensual sexual encounter at an off-campus apartment turned violent when she was placed in handcuffs, slapped beyond the face subsequently withdrawing her consent, slashed across the abdomen with a knife, and sexually assaulted as one of the perpetrators held down her legs. "There was an incredible amount of media attention nigh this case," Loehn, now executive director of Northwestern Children's Advocacy Center, remembers. Too much, in fact, for the case to make a real impact with a verdict. "This victim was overwhelmed by the media attention. Smith College is a modest higher. People knew all of the parties involved. At that place were camera crews on her doorstep." The survivor ultimately decided to drop the charges. Like many sexual attack charges that die in a courtroom, the case at present looms as a cautionary tale.

Over 10 years after, same-sex rape on college campuses is only starting to be quantified on a national level. Haven, an online sexual assault and awareness program that logs sexual assaults directly from students, works with cocky-reported information from over 800 colleges and universities. Haven had never compiled a study on undergraduate women who take been assaulted by women, but teamed upwards with MarieClaire.com to reveal new data: While the number of reported sexual assaults by women was low compared to assaults overall (merely virtually 2.5 percent), the most striking deviation came down to the likelihood of survivors to report the incident: 30 percent of women assaulted past another woman told no one, compared to 25 of women who didn't report an attack past a human.

More information is needed at all levels—government, collegiate, and otherwise. All the experts nosotros spoke to point to an overall famine of enquiry on intimate partner violence in queer female communities as the biggest obstacle in developing more accessible resources for survivors.

In the concurrently, Langenderfer-Magruder asserts that language tin can be a powerful place to start correcting this oversight. Omitting the standard "he" equally perpetrator and "she" for victim in laws, educational materials, and even just general discussion encourages awareness. "Research has conspicuously demonstrated that intimate partner violence does non happen in a solely heterosexual context—and the way we discuss it should reverberate that," she says.

It's been four years since Alaina was raped and she still has no plans to pursue formal charges against her rapist. She says, unflinchingly, that she has moved on in other ways: She'due south chosen to alter her name, and has moved to a new metropolis where she has pursued a successful freelance writing career, often writing about sexual assault inside the LGBTQ community.

"I consider myself a vocal survivor," she says of educating those effectually her, one person, queer or direct, at a time.